


I'm Your Janus, I'm Your Fire

by lilacsigil



Category: Silk (Comics)
Genre: F/F, Lasers, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 06:14:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19101352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/pseuds/lilacsigil
Summary: Cindy doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere. Not at a movie night with her friends, not dodging deadly lasers, and definitely, especially, not in Felicia's bed.





	I'm Your Janus, I'm Your Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



"This time I'll make it! This time I'll make it!" Cindy chanted to herself as she did her make-up and put up her hair. Earrings in place, she slipped on her sneakers at the door and headed out to meet up with Lola and Rafferty. They were obsessed with anime, and tonight she was definitely, certainly going to meet them for the first screening of some movie she couldn't remember the name of but was apparently very exciting. Rafferty's college anime club had rented a cinema for the evening and she'd been invited as a former president. Since Cindy had mentioned she used to read manga and manhwa in high school, of course she'd want to go. So Cindy had stumped up her $10 and promised to definitely not miss it. 

Of course, "in high school" was Cindy's personal code for "in the bunker", so she'd read those collections and she'd read them again and again, even the manhwa her parents had put in hoping to improve her Korean. When she'd got out, she hadn't wanted to read another one ever again. Besides, there was too much that she desperately needed to catch up on to cope with her job and her other job and her hunt for her family: she had no energy for nostalgia. 

On the subway, a guy was harassing a teenage girl. As she tried to ignore him he leaned in closer, pinning her in her seat. 

"No, babe, come on, I got a lot to offer."

"Hey, leave her alone," Cindy told him. 

"You gonna make me?"

"Sure thing," she replied and kept walking straight at him, through the gap mysteriously created by a crowd of commuters trying not to be involved. 

He looked like he was going to argue for a moment, but caved before Cindy actually got there and slunk away up the train. 

"You okay?" Cindy asked the girl, relieved that she wouldn't have to fight him and probably be late. 

"Thanks, yeah, I'm good. Thanks."

"No problem," Cindy told her, and waited until the girl had disembarked to make sure the douchebro didn't follow her off the train. He didn't, so Cindy reached her station without incident and went upstairs with a big pack of students. She always felt weird around other people around her age, but students especially: her mom had pushed so hard for her to go to college, and here she was without so much as a GED. And she should do something about that, she should move on with her life – all the other Spider-people she'd met had suffered tragedy and kept going – and yet she was stuck in limbo, not knowing what had happened to her family. Were they dead or alive or kidnapped by Morlun the spider-totem eating guy to find her location? Were they suffering or dying while she put on her Converse and went to see anime? She'd honestly kind of expected them to resurface when she and all the other Spider-people had stopped Morlun, but nothing, nothing at all. 

The cinema was close to the subway station and, astonishingly, there was not a single mugging, mysterious bad guy or multiversal portal in between. Cindy took a deep breath. She was actually going to be here and meet her friends…and that really did feel weird. Her life was full of secrets and half-truths, and sometimes it felt like she only half-knew anybody. And that nobody knew her.

"Hey, Cindy!" Lola yelled from the doorway. "Over here!" Cindy hurried over and Lola threw her arms around her. "OMG you made it! Well done!"

"I've got minutes to spare!" Cindy said into Lola's fuzzy vest. 

"Go in, get them to cross your name off. Rafferty's in there already talking nerd," she said fondly. 

"Will do!"

Formalities sorted – she would have said hi to Rafferty but she couldn't have got a word in edgewise - Cindy ducked into the bathroom before she went to the cinema itself. As she washed her hands, a circle of darkness appeared in the mirror. 

"Oh, not now!" she muttered, but she couldn't say she wasn't a little bit relieved. The whole crowd of enthusiastic people had been starting to make her edgy. She reached out and touched the whirling black and felt herself dragged through a portal. 

Cindy managed a semi-elegant roll out of the portal to land on her feet again. She was standing in a dark room and her spider-sense was flaring up in all directions, yet again. The damn thing was meant to be useful, but all she could do was freeze on the spot and try to work out what it was telling her. She took a deep breath and tried to focus. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she first realised that the minimal light was tinted red, then understood what she was seeing.

For once, the danger really was all around her: she was standing perfectly still in the middle of a complex laser grid. She could smell a faint burning smell where a laser had caught the edge of her jacket when she somersaulted in. Well, the usually useless spider-sense had saved her so far: she'd have to trust it further. After zipping up her jacket and tucking her ponytail into her collar, she took a deep breath and slowly crouched down. At every second she waited for that weird scalp tingle that told her to stop, but with a few adjustments to her direction and physical positioning managed to end up on all fours. The maze of lasers was less confusing at floor level, since she had fewer beams to navigate than she'd had at her full height, and a slow, careful scramble got her all the way to the door.   
Sliding her body carefully up the door to avoid more lasers, Cindy snapped the handle and pushed it open, dropping low again to avoid any attacks. Instead, there was a loud cheer from many people, all Cindy could process with lights glaring in her eyes. 

"Silk! I knew you could do it, babe!" shouted a woman's voice. Felicia. 

"What the hell?" Cindy yelled, shading her eyes and blinking fast. The room was full of people, many of them in costume, others in suits or fancy dresses, most of them heavily armed. There was a huge TV screen on one wall, showing the laser-filled room that Cindy had escaped. Stacks of money and piles of jewellery were changing hands, mostly being given to a built young guy Felicia had on a lead. He wore a cat mask and short shorts and stood slightly behind her, putting the cash in a velvet bag. He certainly wasn't a bodyguard: Felicia didn't need one, and he didn't have anywhere to conceal a weapon.

"You're the first one to make it through!" Felicia took a glass of champagne from her leashed man's hand, after he'd taken a sip. "You won me some big dollars."

"Woo, Black Cat!" someone cheered. This place was definitely in party mode, and Cindy could see at least half a dozen known supervillains. None of them in the big leagues but definitely the kind that made people's lives unnecessarily shitty: Hammerhead, Boomerang, Mamba and Anaconda from the Serpent Society. A couple of flunkies were slumped on a giant red leather sofa, with a waitress tending to their burn wounds. They must have been the less successful attempts before Cindy made it past the lasers, and the source of the long pork smell. The waitress seemed pretty competent – a medical student, maybe? Cindy memorised her face to pass on to S.H.I.E.L.D. later. 

Cindy might be trying to get in good with Felicia, but this was too far. She stormed up to her and struck her champagne glass from her hand. The room went silent for a moment, then buzzed with excitement again. Seriously, were these people high schoolers? Someone was chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" already. Then again, she had read many of their S.H.I.E.L.D. files and they did tend to have problems with maturity and impulse control as a group. Cindy decided to go with it. 

"I like your style, Felicia, but I'm not your bitch. You want me to jump through hoops, you ask me first."

Felicia made a pouty face back at her. "Come on, babe, I'll throw 50K of this your way."

"Don't insult me!" Cindy swept her open hand at Felicia's face. Felicia caught her by the wrist, but Cindy was ready for that and was already swinging with her left to land a stinging slap on Felicia's cheek. 

"Oooooh!" the crowd reacted, and Felicia's cheerful expression evaporated in an instant. 

"Enough, Silk." She made the slightest of movements and suddenly Cindy's arm was twisted up in front of her, her shoulder joint straining to stay in place as Felicia pulled her in close, face to face. Cindy could use her super-strength to pull free, but only at the cost of dislocating her own shoulder: Felicia knew how to deal with superpowered opponents. The half-naked man was jammed against Cindy's side, dragged in by the leash Felicia was still holding. 

Cindy thought she'd proven her point and was about to quit, when she caught sight of her handprint, bright red on Felicia's cheek, and couldn't stop herself smirking, just a little. 

Felicia saw it, of course, and twisted harder, bending Cindy painfully forward trying to relieve the pressure. "Give up, babe. Or at least lighten up!"

"Easy for you to say," Cindy managed to grit out, and managed to kick upwards past Felicia's arm to connect with the short leash. The man at the end of it choked and, yanked forward by the neck, stumbled forward into Felicia. Felicia had to let go of Cindy to maintain her balance and Cindy twisted free. 

"Shoulda taken the cash!" Boomerang yelled from somewhere in the crowd. Catching the furious expression on Felicia's face, Cindy was inclined to agree. It was too late, though, as Felicia popped her sharp claws and slashed at Cindy's chest. Acting mostly on instinct, since her spider-sense was overreacting so much as to be useless, Cindy dropped to the floor and into a crouch, spin-kicking at Felicia's knees. Felicia neatly jumped right over the kick and grabbed Cindy's ponytail, hauling her off balance and backwards.

Cindy tried to regain her footing – Felicia's grip didn't hurt much and she wasn't using her claws – but, failing that, she grabbed Felicia's fingers where they were tangled in her hair and twisted. She couldn't get much leverage, but she didn't need to, and Felicia let go with a curse rather than have a finger broken. Her free hand swung around at Cindy and raked bloody lines down her arm, ripping her sleeve. 

"First blood!" Felicia grinned. "You ready to quit?"

Cindy really did think about it for a moment: she should get be at the movie, leave Felicia to her stupid party. Something in her didn't want to go, though. She would rather be here fighting like a maniac over something stupid than hang out with her friends. What did that make her, she wondered? 

"Apologise to Zachary here and we're even," Felicia added, gesturing at her half-naked man who was rubbing his carpet-burned elbow and looking very sorry for himself. 

Cindy sighed. "Okay, that's fair. Zachary, I'm sorry I dragged you into this fight. You weren't here for that."

"Apology accepted," he huffed. 

"But Felicia? I am sure as hell not apologising to you. You go in there and run the laser gauntlet and then _we're_ even too."

The drunk supervillains all cheered, and bets started flying.

Felicia scowled at Cindy. "All right, you little minx. Watch me do this on a bottle of champagne when you could barely manage sober." 

She flung open the door to the laser room, where the lasers had been apparently switched off, and strolled in to stand on a slightly scorched spot on the floor. 

"Lasers, cameras, action!" 

The door slammed closed and everyone turned to a big screen on the wall. It was night vision, and when the lasers appeared they stood out bright white. Felicia stretched out her arms and cracked her knuckles. For someone who claimed to be drunk, she looked extremely confident. She did take a moment to stuff her hair down her collar, though. 

Instead of the low route that Cindy had taken, Felicia jumped upwards, neatly ducking between two lasers, then dropped into a dive and quick roll into a crouch. She hadn't touched a single laser, but, having gone a different initial direction to Cindy, she was now faced with a wall of criss-crossed lasers, and Cindy couldn't see a clear route through. Felicia slid out into the splits, bent her body forward at the hips until she was flat on the floor, and pulled herself forward with her sharp claws, wiggling her butt and sliding under the lowest of the lasers by millimetres. She grinned up at the camera, clearly enjoying herself. 

Three more careful movements and Felicia was about a body's length from the clear space at the door. The low path that Cindy had taken was available to her, but Felicia was sizing up a different route. 

"No way!" mostly-naked Zachary called out as she crouched down, clearly preparing to jump. The room held its collective breath.

Felicia kicked off and leapt almost vertically, twisting in the air to throw herself backwards over the shoulder-height beam like an incredibly accurate high-jumper. She landed in a handspring and pushed off again, flying blind and feet-first through a tiny diamond shaped gap in the middle of the crossed beams and landing square against the door, the force of her kick throwing the doors open. 

Felicia landed on her feet, and raised her arms. The crowd was mesmerised. She turned to face them. "The greatest!" 

Cheers rang out, much louder than they had for Silk, and half-naked Zachary had to quickly duck as people threw jewellery in appreciation. 

Turning to Cindy, Felicia took her by the chin, her sharp claws just short of piercing the skin. "And that's how you do it, babe."

Cindy couldn't help it. She leaned forward and kissed Felicia right on her triumphant smile. Felicia made a brief noise of surprise but recovered quickly and returned the kiss, bending Cindy backwards as if Cindy was swooning in her arms. To be fair, Cindy kind of was. She might be here at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s behest, ready to take these jerks down, but she couldn't deny she was having a great time doing it. This was her life, her real life, even if she was as much of a liar here as she was with her other friends.

With some effort, Cindy found her feet again, and stood up, still glued to Felicia's amazing kiss. She clenched her hand in Felicia's hair and jumped up to wrap her legs around Felicia's waist. 

Cindy broke the kiss for a moment. "Think we should get a room?"

"Hell yeah. These guys have had enough of a show." Felicia turned and yelled. "Spot! Send us upstairs. Zachary'll pay you."

Whoever this "Spot" was did his work, as Felicia dropped Cindy, but instead of hitting the floor, she fell through yet another black portal to land on a giant double bed. Felicia landed beside her a moment later. 

"Wow!" Cindy gasped, slightly breathless, "Handy guy to know!" 

"For kidnapping girls to my boudoir? He certainly is!" Felicia stuck a claw through the zipper pull of Cindy's jacket and unzipped it all the way down. Cindy shrugged out of it, and reached up to kiss Felicia again. The last person she'd slept with had been Spider-Man, and neither of them had been in their right minds with that stupid Spider Totem driving them. Tonight she'd chosen to be here. Well, not here, exactly, but with Felicia. She kicked her sneakers off, vaguely squicked at wearing shoes inside at all, let alone on a bed. 

"How does your costume even come off?" Cindy asked, after a few minutes of searching had uncovered nothing useful. Felicia, meanwhile, had rid Cindy – who was hardly resisting – of her t-shirt and jeans, leaving only her underpants and sports bra. 

"If I tell you, you might stop looking," Felicia smirked. 

"I promise I won't!" 

"Well, if you promise!" Felicia slid a claw up the side of her bodice, and it clicked free. Cindy immediately got her hands underneath and onto Felicia's bare skin. The bodice had support built into it, so as Felicia peeled it away, she was naked from the waist up. 

"Wow," Cindy said, momentarily surprised into immobility by Felicia's gorgeous breasts. 

Felicia lightly slapped at her face. "You said you wouldn't stop!" 

"Oh! Yeah!" She moved her hands up to cup Felicia's breasts, her thumbs bumping against her nipples, then stroking them more confidently. 

"That's better," Felicia purred, peeling off her long gloves along with the claws. Cindy was kind of relieved to see those go.

Felicia knelt over Cindy, pressing her knee up between Cindy's legs, which Cindy couldn't help but grind on, kissing and sucking on Felicia's nipples as she lowered herself towards Cindy's face. 

Felicia shimmied out of her pants and boots, and Cindy let out a noise of complaint as the pressure was removed from her groin for a moment, but Felicia was quick to return her knee to where it needed to be. 

"There you are, you whiny baby. I thought you were tough."

Cindy repaid that with her teeth, biting Felicia on one perfect breast, and grinning at her shriek. Felicia clamped a hand around Cindy's throat, with just a little pressure, then moved her hands out to pin Cindy's arms. Despite Cindy's attempts to clamp Felicia's knee in place with her thighs, Felicia pulled free and wriggled her way up Cindy's body until she was sitting directly over her face. Only then did she release Cindy's arms, holding her down with her knees on Cindy's upper arms instead.

"No treats for you until you kiss it all better, baby."

Cindy rolled her eyes at being called baby again, but the thought of a treat from Felicia was too much for her to try to keep her dignity, so instead she poked her tongue out, just a little. 

Felicia laughed and lowered herself down to Cindy's mouth. "Good girl."

This wasn't a position Cindy had ever been in before, but she wouldn't it go to waste. She put her tongue to work, feeling her way into Felicia's wet folds, closing her eyes so that all she could sense was Felicia: the pain in her arms from Felicia's knees; the concentrated smell and taste of Felicia in her mouth and nose; being completely engulfed in her pleasure. When she closed her lips over Felicia's clitoris, it made Felicia moan and briefly rock upwards, forgetting that she was pinning Cindy in place. Cindy took the opportunity to pull her arms free and grab Felicia by both soft, muscular buttocks and control her movements. As Cindy sucked hard again, Felicia gave a deep moan and clenched her thighs around Cindy's head, hard enough to make Cindy worry about her oxygen for a few long moments. 

Felicia collapsed down on Cindy, her pale skin flushed pink and sticking to Cindy with sweat. 

"Okay, all good, you can go now!"

"You promised!" Cindy argued, trying to keep the desperate whine out of her voice.

Felicia laughed, her eyes flashing as she flicked her damp hair from her face. "You're pleading for honour among thieves? Oh, all right, don't say I don't keep my word."

She slid down Cindy's body and somehow dragged Cindy's underpants off as she went, before Cindy had realised Felicia had touched them. She dug her hard fingers into Cindy's hips, opening her to Felicia's tongue, and Cindy jumped as if she'd been shocked. For all she was trying to be sophisticated and tough, she had no defences against Felicia's ability to read her body and respond before Cindy had even formed a thought, and she whimpered softly as Felicia's tongue licked roughly at her clitoris, Felicia's fingers thrusting inside her on an angle that was somehow melting her body from the inside out. 

Cindy saw stars and collapsed down onto the bed, though she hadn't been aware how far she'd arched up off it. Felicia's fingers were still inside her, painful now but also throwing her body off the cliff again, shuddering over and over until she couldn't move away. 

"Enough, enough," she gasped. "Felicia, enough."

Felicia laughed, but it was a fond laugh, as she snuggled up to Cindy and kissed the tip of her ear. "You haven't done that for a while, have you? Have more sex, it's good for your flexibility. And your temper."

"My temper is just fine," Cindy said dreamily. "But you can come fix it any time."

Felicia was suddenly standing, no longer touching Cindy. "I'm going downstairs to my party now. Stay here as long as you want, baby."

Cindy wanted to argue, or at least coolly get dressed and go along with Felicia, but her legs really didn't want to support her. "You could stay?" she said, to her own embarrassment.

Bending down and kissing Cindy, briefly but hard, Felicia smiled down at her. "I might be back. I might not. But you're full of surprises, Silk. Don't worry, I want to see you again. And again." With that, she clicked her top shut, stepped into her boots, and departed. 

To her own horror, Cindy started to cry the moment the door was closed. She'd had fun! Felicia wanted to see her again! Surely this was just hormones, or something. Cindy peeled herself off the bed, trying to sniff up her tears and snot – she wasn't a pretty crier – and went looking for her clothes. She caught sight of herself in a mirror, red and weepy, and immediately stopped. This was ridiculous. What had she been thinking? Felicia would be her friend? Her girlfriend? 

"Remember who you are," she told herself in the mirror, frowning sternly to get the last few tears under control. This was her real life, caught between two sides, and it was her real job to navigate both. She caught herself smiling again, just a little bit: if the benefits involved sex with Felicia, she really didn't have anything to complain about. If she went downstairs and threatened Spot, she might make it to the anime screening before it finished so she could pretend she'd been there the whole time, rather than dodging lasers and being eaten out by the Black Cat. Cindy could balance these lives. She smiled at herself once more, then shook her head. What the hell was she going to put in the report to Bobbi Morse?


End file.
